The present invention relates to a process and to a system for the relative positioning of two optical fibers with a view to establishing an optical link or connection between them. It can more particularly be used in the field of splicing or connecting optical fibers, e.g. by arc welding or a CO.sub.2 laser. Moreover, the optical fibers considered in the present invention can be single-mode or multimode fibers.
It is known that the connection of optical fibers and in particular single-mode optical fibers is a difficult operation requiring highly skilled personnel.
Before carrying out said connection, it is necessary to align the fiber cores in as accurate a manner as possible (which is not easy in the case of single-mode fibers, whose cores generally have diameters less than 10 micrometers).
This connection can be brought about by placing the ends of the two fibers to be connected in the same V-shaped support, but such a procedure assumes the concentricity of the core and the covering of each fiber.
Another known procedure utilizes the optimization of the light energy coupling between the fibers to be connected, but this requires that the operator carrying out the connection has access to the other ends of the fibers, as well as an information return to said operator.
Two other known procedures make it possible to overcome the need to have access to the two ends of the fibers. One of these requires the use of a differential contrast microscope, which has very large dimensions and is therefore difficult to use other than in a laboratory. The second involves the use of the fluorescence of the core of the optical fibers and consequently only relates to germanium dioxide-doped fibers. When such fibers are irradiated with ultraviolet radiation, their core emits radiation which, appropriately treated, makes it possible to locate the core in each fiber and therefore align the two fibers.